Students lobby state capitol for Students’ Day

On Monday, a group of University of Northern Iowa students took politics into their own hands during UNI’s annual Students’ Day at the Capitol event.

Forty-eight UNI students traveled Des Moines to meet with legislators and to talk about the future of UNI’s funding. With cuts to Iowa’s state budget this year, the event had special importance.

Matt Horihan, Northern Iowa Student Government director of external relations, said that while budget cuts to UNI’s funding are virtually inevitable, he and other participants in the event wanted to ensure that these cuts were equitable for all state agencies.

“We understand that funding is tight, (but) we don’t want education to take a larger hit than everyone else,” Brandon Neil, NISG director of public relations, said.

Horihan noted that there has been a proposed cut of 12.5 percent to the general Regents’ fund.

“Another line item that controls programs within UNI is at an 8.3 percent cut,” he said.

Students also lobbied to use money from the federal stimulus package to fill in this gap in funding.

One issue was keeping tuition increases to a minimum.

“I know with the current state of the economy, students need all the help they can get with tuition,” said freshman Morgan Johnson, who was among the students that traveled to the capitol.

Horihan said that high tuition costs have contributed to students going out of state for college or leaving after college and mentioned studies that have ranked Iowa sixth in the nation for brain drain and first in the nation for student debt.

“Part of what we talked about was the brain drain issue,” he said. “If tuition is not affordable, students are going to go out-of-state. (If you stay and) have high debt, you’re going to have to go to a higher income state.”

Students from Iowa State University and the University of Iowa joined UNI students at the Capitol. Johnson said UNI had a good showing at the event.

“It was really impressive to see the number of students who went from UNI,” she said. “We had about 48 students and Iowa State and University of Iowa had about 15 each. We had a strong presence even though we’re the smallest of the regent universities.”

While Horihan said that meeting with a legislator in person can have a big impact, he added that students can take action from here in Cedar Falls. Students can call Governor Chet Culver’s office at 515-281-5211 or e-mail him at chet.culver@iowa.gov.

“Due to the fact that the governor controls stimulus dollars coming in, it’s important to have (students) contact him,” Horihan said.

Students can also call their state representatives through the House Switchboard at 515-281-3221 and their state senators through the Senate Switchboard at 515-281-3371 or find their e-mail addresses at http://www.legis.state.ia.us/FindLeg.

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